Passenger on trial for Memphis cabbie's slaying

Jurors won't hear about other robberies of drivers

When Roderick Moore was arrested for the robbery and murder of a Yellow Cab driver in 2004, he already had been charged with robbing four other cabbies, including one who was shot.

The Criminal Court jury hearing his murder case that began Wednesday, however, will not be told of those other cases because they are still pending.

Moore, 22, was just 17 when he climbed into Robert Adams' cab the morning of Nov. 23, 2004, in Cordova.

Soon after Adams took Moore to his destination at the Foxwood Apartments at Mt. Moriah Extended and Ridgeway in Southeast Memphis, there was a confrontation when Moore said he only had $20 for the $32 ride.

State Prosecutor Paul Goodman said Adams tried to detain Moore, but that Moore hit and then repeatedly stabbed Adams with a large knife.

He said one stab wound struck an artery in Adams' leg, causing the 62-year-old father of seven to bleed to death in minutes.

The defendant then took the driver's wallet with $200 inside and fled, Goodman said.

Moore, who had been released on $50,000 bond less than a month earlier, does not deny the killing, his lawyer said.

"Is he responsible for the death is different than is he guilty of premeditated murder," attorney Claiborne Ferguson told jurors. "It was a fight. It was not a robbery."

Ferguson said that when the cab arrived at the apartments, Adams became angry and threatening when Moore did not have enough money to pay the fare.

Witnesses told police the two men were struggling outside the cab and that when the cab driver tried to get back inside, the suspect stabbed him in the back.

Moore, who faces life in prison if convicted, has been held without bond since his arrest soon after Adams' death.